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Post by Renathan on Apr 7, 2020 17:41:31 GMT -6
Time was certainly not on his side this go around. This was shortly after work, but he knew he needed to be home by feeding time, so it was time to get started. This non-donut shaped little cavern was instead a little lopsided and small, and it ended off in a crack in the ground, not at all big enough for the mammalian or his mining familiar friend to get down into. Already Sarabi was moving past him with purpose, intelligent in her own of course, and realizing with a huff that this wasn't going to be a long trip. She missed going on long mining trips, and being able to do her own digging into more interesting caverns. Renathan couldn't help but shoot her an apologetic look even though she wouldn't be able to see it under his mask. He gets the mining cart put into a more convenient position.
[3]
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Post by Renathan on Apr 7, 2020 17:50:03 GMT -6
Now that the mining cart was probably not going to roll away any time soon, the mammalian turned around to look to see what Sarabi was doing already. She was easy to find in such a small area of course, despite the fact that it was somewhat oblong. Sarabi was scratching at the wall over that way already, and Renathan wasn't even surprised. She had been a little stir crazy at the house lately, so he knew that it was 'emergency trip to the mansion' time, because Sarabi was bad about getting a little dig crazy and tearing stuff up around the farm if he didn't watch it. Sarabi wasn't even paying attention to him, and that was fine he decided. He had his own expertise to lean on, and if she found anything interesting, that would be a bonus. She wasn't hungry, he fed her all the time. She wouldn't eat the gems.
[4]
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Post by Renathan on Apr 7, 2020 17:55:25 GMT -6
So Renathan opened up the mining buggy to check and decide what he wanted to use today. These walls were relatively soft, he didn't want to pick anything that would break his arms off as far as he was concerned. He didn't want to tire himself out today. He picked up a suitable item from his stock to dig in the wall randomly, and then he turned around to place his palm on the wall and check to see what kind of stone it was. He remembered that it was soft, but not what kind of carrier stone it was. After feeling around, he found a particularly rough indention on the wall with his palm. Ah, there, he decided. He would go ahead and use the pickaxe there to see if there were any abnormalities. He immediately steadied himself and went to work. Sarabi digging at the wall on the opposite side from him as he worked.
[5]
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Post by Lethalia on Apr 7, 2020 18:02:15 GMT -6
Some kind of soft metal waiting to be found by either creature or master gem-seeker.
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Post by Renathan on Apr 8, 2020 0:25:46 GMT -6
Renathan continued working at that spot in the wall, noting fairly quickly through experience and knowledge that the nodule in the wall was nothing after the first few strikes. The mammalian tilted his head and sighed, this was a bad spot to have started, but it looked like a correct one. Still, he continued there, removing good swathes of the wall with each strike because he was quite an accomplished miner up to this point. He was just super used to it, even after all of this time where he didn't really have the typical time he used to have to do this activity. He wondered after a while how Sarabi had done, if she had found anything of use yet. However, he just kept wailing at the wall until his shoulders were definitely feeling the jar of it, and then he sat the pickaxe up against the wall, fruitlessly. He had expected a little differently.
[6]
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Post by Renathan on Apr 8, 2020 0:28:12 GMT -6
Renathan remembered sometime in the past, when he would have used going on mining trips to simply help him raise little baby creatures. That stopped after Lisle's accident, back when he was a chiryma. Renathan still frowned when he thought of that, only now he had the added pain of thinking of Shy Guy there in the dirt of the pit, broken and bleeding and still staring that enemy down- ready to fight... To protect him. He couldn't believe had had done that to one of his animals- forced him into thinking that he had to fight an enemy in the pit just to protect him. It made him downright sick. Renathan swallowed, the lump back down his throat, pushed it from his mind with some difficulty, and grabbed a drink out of the mining cart as he went to go check out Sarabi to see how she had done so far.
[7]
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Post by Renathan on Apr 8, 2020 0:35:22 GMT -6
Sarabi was more successful than he was, as always. She hadn't found anything he could use, personally, but she had found herself a salt like and was going to town licking down the salt lick. It had been just below the surface of the rock on this side, and it was pretty much a layer of rock salt, a really thick one, like a sheet. Renathan knew that mining familiars tended to prefer these kinds of licks, so he patted her on the back to show camaraderie, as they had been doing, and she looked at him with those knowing eyes of hers. "You're doing good, Sarabi, you just have some of that salt lick. I have water for you when you need it." He knew that she didn't understand all of it, but they had been working together for long enough for her to get the gist. Sarabi. Salt. Good. Water. She turned back towards the salt lick.
[8]
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Post by Renathan on Apr 8, 2020 0:39:17 GMT -6
Renathan decided to take a moment or two to settle down, and try to feel for the soul of the place, the ley that laid here. He was sure he could feel it; it had taken him forever to realize it but the ones in Pethia sang softer, lower, whispering. Sleepy. They had been that way for a long time. He knew that there had to be one here, and he figured that taking a moment to recognize it would do everyone some good. So while Sarabi stood to the salt lick in order to lick (she didn't get to a lot, so Renathan usually had to provide it in her diet) Renathan sat down on the floor of the mine, and placed his palms to the floor of the cave to be able to feel it. The ground felt nice, almost rolling, beneath him as he focused. He sat there for a good long time.
[9]
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Post by Renathan on Apr 8, 2020 0:42:19 GMT -6
After a while, Renathan feels like he has understood the place as well as he could. It was difficult to understand the language of the Pethian leys, they spoke with a different cadence to the lilting songs of his homeland. After standing, Renathan ran his palm along the wall until he felt it. He marked the spot, grabbed the pickaxe, and began his work. It was hard work, as always, backbreaking work, and Renathan was finally able to get what he was looking for; a thin and lovely vein of some kind of metal ran along here. He smiled beneath his mask, noting his success to himself, and then he continued the work of removing as much of it as he could, finally producing a nice hunk from the wall. Sarabi even stopped licking the salt lick she had found for a moment to come over and inspect his find excitedly.
[10]
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Post by Lethalia on Apr 8, 2020 3:59:09 GMT -6
Decidedly... not rock. What a neat find!
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Post by Renathan on Jul 23, 2020 10:39:51 GMT -6
Renathan was not exactly sure what he was looking for whenever he did these sorts of trips. Even the best laid plans of mice and men, after all, did not work out. Renathan was always after gemstones for his work, but most of the time he found things he either wasn't really interested in using, had no need to work with, or even things that wouldn't sell all that well (which were the only other reason that he did this sort of thing). Today seemed to be one of those days so far, but Renathan was convinced that this particular stone would hopefully turn his luck. However, whenever he managed to crack the rock open, he did not see any kind of a gemstone. Instead, Renathan laid eyes on what looked to be another sort of rock within the rock. While rock inclusions were not rare, he was still fairly surprised. Sarabi however, did not seem surprised at all.
[11]
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Post by Renathan on Jul 23, 2020 10:44:43 GMT -6
"Well Sarabi, what do you think it is?" Renathan asked her, knowing that he was not going to get an answer. She simply tilted her head one direction, and then the other before turning around and heading back over to her salt lick. The mammalian shrugged and put his pickaxe down to use another of his tools since he needed something that could work more precisely on the stones here. He couldn't help but think as he worked, especially since he was so used to doing this kind of work that he could probably do it in his sleep. Sarabi seemed to have gotten done working on her saltlick before long, however, because Renathan could hear her scrabbling at the wall behind him. Or at least, he hoped that it was her. He hadn't heard her try to warn him as of yet though, so he assumed that it was her and not some enemy.
[12]
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Post by Renathan on Jul 23, 2020 10:48:27 GMT -6
There were many things that Renathan was hoping was in this rock inclusion, but he was still quite shocked to find out that it was some kind of fossil. He didn't really collect fossils, but he hadn't really found any that weren't the helical ones before. This one was certainly not a helical one. Instead, it appeared to be some kind of a claw, or perhaps a fang. He was only able to excise the tip of it for now, so it could very well have been either of those things and Renathan wouldn't be able to argue it. Perhaps when he managed to get the rest of it out he would know for sure? It was an interesting prospect to find this out, but Renathan could not rush his tried and true method of removing things from rock without harming anything. While he was doing this, Sarabi could handle digging otherwise behind him.
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Post by Renathan on Jul 23, 2020 10:51:37 GMT -6
The mammalian hoped that Sarabi would find anything of interest. Today they'd managed to find a few things, but they were so very far between. Usually it was the other way around, Renathan would find a lot of little cheap baubles, but hardly anything of value. Everything he had found today up to this point had been of decent value, or at least medium as far as he could ascertain, but he hadn't really gotten enough of it to really be substantial. So far, the trip was shaping up to be a bust, so it was really up to Sarabi to do what he had not managed to do today. She was a lot better at it than he was, anyway. The scrabbling ceased from behind him for a moment, but Renathan did not stop working on the fossil to make sure that it was safely removed from the rock without destroying it.
[14]
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Post by Renathan on Jul 23, 2020 10:56:50 GMT -6
After a moment or two, the scrabbling resumed, and Renathan assumed that Sarabi had began working again. Sometimes things were quite slow in the mines, and that was the way Renathan liked it. There was no real need to wish for things to ramp up in a bad way just because it was a bit boring. No news was better than bad news. The mammalian wrapped his tails around him as he worked, to keep them out of the way of any possible falling stones from whatever it was that his mining familiar was doing back there, making all of that noise. He had learned that lesson the hard way a while back, and he was not keen to have to bandage up his tails again anytime soon. He continued focusing on removing the carrier stone from around the fossil to make it as clear as possible so that he could get a good look at it.
[15]
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